The incident began when officers from LAPD's South Traffic Division saw a gray pickup truck speeding south on Crenshaw Boulevard. The pickup truck then crashed into a palm tree. As officers approached the truck, Cox, while reaching for the glove compartment, told officers to "move away or he would kill them," police said. Officers from LAPDs 77th Street and Southwest divisions responded to the site to assist the officers. A perimeter was set up along Slauson Avenue, while Cox remained barricaded inside his truck.

Cox was an unarmed motorist who was holding a cigarette lighter that police “thought was a gun".